Behind the scenes: Thibodaux light show requires weeks of work

Sunday

Dec 23, 2012 at 7:02 PM

If you pass by the Dansereau House in downtown Thibodaux on a December night, get ready for your jaw to drop.

Matthew AlbrightStaff Writer

If you pass by the Dansereau House in downtown Thibodaux on a December night, get ready for your jaw to drop.Every 15 minutes, from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., the blaze of lights in the landmark building's front yard goes haywire. From a distance, the rapid-fire flashes of color look like a seizure waiting to happen.But if you're close enough, or if you have your radio tuned to 98.9 FM, you hear the rushing music of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra — and it all suddenly makes sense.As the piano solo rings out, the house's stately columns light up like keys sliding up and down the huge keyboard of the building's front facade. As the guitar wails, the towering Christmas tree of lights swirls.“This is a much, much faster song than the one we had last year,” said innkeeper Paul Worrell. “I really had to step it up to make it work. But I like the result.”Worrell and his wife, Lori, have run the Dansereau House for three years. Each year, they've put out a more extravagant Christmas spread.“From day one, we said we wanted Christmas to be special,” Worrell said. On the inside, the look fits the house's old-school, refined ambivalence — there are eight Christmas trees with warm but subdued lighting and wreaths and strings of lights hanging over doorways.For the outside light show, however, Worrell decided to forgo subdued in favor of spectacular.On their first Christmas at the house, Worrell, who has been an architect for 30 years, set out a formidable set of lights. But they were mostly static, and he wanted more. “I started doing some research and found these boxes that would let us turn it into a show,” Worrell said. “At first I thought, ‘I don't know if I want to enter into the black hole. I might never come out.'” Last year, Worrell used a computer-programmed 40-channel circuit box. The 40 channels meant Worrell had 40 different sets of lights to manipulate for his show. This year, Worrell bought another box to give him more room to operate. This year's show has 80 individual clusters of lights, letting him create all kinds of dazzling effects.“I have enough layers going both vertically and horizontally that I can do a lot with it,” he said. “It gives me a lot of options.”That complex of a light show requires weeks of painstaking work. Worrell started working on the lights shortly after Halloween and had everything ready by Dec. 2 when the show served as the finale of the Thibodaux Christmas Parade. “He would go out and start working on the lights right when I was going to bed,” said Lori, who called herself her husband's “encourager-in-chief.”Keeping everything organized is “terribly difficult,” Worrell said. The “mega tree” alone has 7,000 lights. Overall, Worrell says the light show includes some 25,000 to 30,000 lights.“You have to be completely focused the whole time you're working on it,” Worrell said. “If you lose track, even for a minute, you're sunk.”Worrell admitted the project was painstaking. And, with such a huge feat to finish by the parade's hard deadline, it also got stressful.But when he first stood in front of the house and watched the show come to life, Worrell said it was all worth it. “The looks that pop up on peoples' faces, especially the kids — it's just so rewarding,” Worrell said. “It makes you feel like you're spreading happiness.”

Staff Writer Matthew Albright can be reached at 448-7635 or at matthew.albright@dailycomet.com.